


how can I miss you if you won't go away

by labocat



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Isolation, M/M, self sacrificing decisions, sensory manipulation lonely style
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-22
Packaged: 2019-10-28 07:50:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17783456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labocat/pseuds/labocat
Summary: Someone will live to see the dawn when the dust settles, Martin will see to that. Even if it involves gritting his teeth through Peter's questions about spreadsheets and his hand on his leg.





	how can I miss you if you won't go away

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Burning_Nightingale](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/gifts).



“Will they be _safe_.”

There’s something to be said for stupid self-sacrificing decisions, but if only more of them would have details upfront. 

Everyone left _is_ safe, so far, even if it seems to be at the expense of Martin’s sanity.

“Martin, could you get me some tea, please?” Peter calls from inside the office. Like Martin hadn’t just gotten him a mug of tea an hour ago. Like he didn’t know what he was really asking for, asking for tea right at three o’clock, when the break room is likely to be full. 

Martin flashes back briefly to cups of tea sat undrunk on top of a desk scattered with files and tapes and to the wish back then that he would have been asked to bring another one. He wonders if there is a monkey’s paw in Archive Storage.

Going down the hall is easy enough — he’d never thought he would appreciate anything from one of the Powers, but the more he can avoid people on his own, without interference from Peter, the better — but the break room is another challenge entirely. Deflection doesn’t work entirely when there are so many people, in and out, greeting each other, even if it is just the nod of acknowledgement when entering an occupied room when you don’t really want to talk. It’s still acknowledgement, and it’s still another chunk of time he’ll have to spend with Peter later, holed up in the office. 

Those periods were difficult, which Martin knew was the point, and he wishes he had someone to talk to during them, which would have defeated the entire purpose. So he talked to himself, pretending there was a tape recorder sitting just out of the corner or his eye. He talked to Jon, to Tim, to Sasha, knowing that they wouldn’t have heard him anyway, so what difference did it make if they were there in his mind. 

Thankfully it seems to be the library staff’s turn in the break room, and few enough know him by name to jeopardize his presence there. Martin doesn’t wait around for the tea to steep properly; if there was anyone who deserves weak tea, it’s Peter Lukas. 

“Ahh, perfect,” Peter says, cupping his hands around the mug that Martin brought back. He inhales the steam coming off the tea deeply and smiles like it’s the most perfect cup of tea, and Martin wants to upend the whole thing over Peter’s head. 

Martin almost makes it back to the door that separates his office from Peter’s. Almost.

There is a moment where he almost keeps going anyway when Peter asks, “Did you talk to anyone?” He almost whirls around and asks Peter if he _knew_ how hard it was to not talk to anyone, _anyone at all_ when one was in a break room during the most common break time. Almost blurts out that Peter is setting him up to fail on purpose, that he had to be getting some sort of enjoyment out of this, because of course he was. But that also would have fallen right into Peter’s hands, and worse than that, given Peter an opening for trapping Martin here. 

“No, only eye contact,” he says instead, turning calmly and meeting Peter’s eyes squarely. He can look at Martin all he wants and will know it is true, that Martin had followed the vague and frankly stupid orders he’d been given to the best of his abilities and for now, had come out okay. 

“Hmm. Very good. You’re progressing more quickly than I had hoped! It’s a nice surprise after the general incompetence of your other coworkers, but I suppose that’s what happens in group projects, after all.”

Martin wants to wring his neck, or better yet, know some way to harm him the way burning statements had seemed to work. Instead, he stands there and lets Peter watch him and doesn’t protest when Peter sighs and says, “Still, it’ll mean three days in here.”

He’s been expecting more, which makes holding back that protest easier than he’d hoped. Three days trapped with Peter. Worse was the feeling those days that Peter was watching him, only to look up and find himself alone. Three days.

All for some eye contact so that he didn’t seem rude when moving beside someone to get to the kettle. 

Still, it would give him time to work on that rota for Artifact Storage so that no one was stuck down there for too long on their own. He only wishes he could be so lucky.

———————-

One day in, and he hasn’t seen much of Peter, aside from having to shoo him away when he tried to contribute to the rota. Inane suggestions, like ‘what if everyone had a symbol instead of their name’ and ‘how hard is it to make it move?’ or ‘what if it was a wheel?’’. Martin had wanted to punch him anyway, for putting him in this whole situation to begin with — jail was _far_ too good for Elias — but each new “suggestion” was another nail in the coffin. Worse, Martin knows this isn’t part of any punishment or lesson Peter is trying to teach him. Peter is just that bad at admin tasks.

It is almost a relief when the silence takes on that oppressive quality Martin is starting to recognize. It’s the ringing in his ears, the way the silence weighs on him, settles across his shoulders to the point that he used to look around for the source of the feeling but all but welcomes it now. He figures it should scare him, how used he is to it, but honestly, he can’t be bothered anymore. Between Peter’s cryptic instructions and even more cryptic threats — if they were threats at all, he can only assume from their general situation — he figures that there are worse things out there waiting for him, for everyone else. The Lonely is the first thing since Beholding that hasn’t tried to kill him outright, and if there’s any chance of any of their team making it out of this alive, much less okay, he’s willing to take it. So he lets himself sink into the silence, lets it take him in the natural direction and focus his thoughts inward.

He’s very productive the rest of the day.

It takes until the end of day two for Peter to show his face again. Martin has a cot in his office — Peter keeps up his apartment, mostly for appearances at this point, since he’s spending more time here, spending more and more days without leaving the Institute, but if it’s not coming out of his paycheck, which Peter assures him it’s not, then Martin is willing to go along with it. For the few days he actually makes it back to his flat, it’s there waiting for him, familiar in its emptiness. He doesn’t let himself dwell on how the emptiness feels the same there and at the Institute. He’s used to his work following him home by now.

He’s lying in the cot, trying to fall asleep when he feels it next — a weight on the end of the bed near his feet. Normally he would ignore it, but he’s far enough away from the realms of sleep that he actually cracks one eye open and looks. Peter’s there, but Martin doesn’t trust his senses anymore, even within the Institute. He rolls over and closes his eyes, facing the wall and away from the rest of the room and how it could contain anything or nothing at all and almost manages to fall asleep, up until the point that he feels a hand travelling up his leg.

Nothing is as forward as Peter when he feels he needs to make a point.

Martin rolls back over, watching Peter watch him, and tries to fight the desire to curl up into a ball. He knows that impulse comes from within him, but he also knows it’s being strengthened by Peter’s presence, that desire for isolation. So he stretches out, putting himself on display and appealing to being watched. That’s something he knows, and anything even the slightest bit more familiar than Peter Lukas’ influence is something that he thinks should be welcome. It reminds him of how he started here, where he got into this whole mess to begin with, of Jon, lying in a hospital bed, and that’s another thought he has to fight curling up against. He lets Peter’s hand continue trailing up his leg, lets it displace the blanket covering him. He thinks about Melanie, about Basira, about Daisy and Tim and Sasha, about all the people still in the Institute who would be affected by its fall. Then he thinks about the woman who runs the coffee shop around the corner from his apartment, about the part-time worker at the grocery store who works the shift when he’s coming home when he does go home and usually gives him an extra scoop of whatever he’s ordered from the deli if he’s there too late. He thinks about what would happen to them if what Peter says is coming to pass if they fail actually occurs. What is likely to happen if any of the Powers get their way and actually complete a ritual. He doesn’t _think_ Peter wants any of them to succeed, for all his talk, and that’s something he’s clinging to. 

He doesn’t let himself think about it any more as Peter’s hand slides higher and higher, until it hits the crease of his thigh. Martin is hard by this point, aware that Peter is just as likely here as not, as he pushes into the feeling of a hand circling his cock, dipping down to cup his balls and pull back up. The feeling is almost too good, too perfectly what he needs, for him to believe it is real, but he also believes Peter is just that much of a bastard to be able to be exactly what he needs. He lets his hips tip into the touch, chasing the feeling, real or not. If Peter is going to try to tempt him this way, he’ll lean into it with everything he’s got. No one said he wasn’t allowed to enjoy the fall, even as his stomach sinks at the thought of what he’s becoming.

He knows this is what Peter wants of him, knows that each encounter ties him further to the Lonely, but he also can’t see any other way out of this. Martin knows he’s the last resort, but if things really have gotten this far, then he’ll do everything he can. So he lets Peter think he submits, that he’s thinking of nothing more than the way Peter’s hand feels too like his own on his cock when he’s alone, that he accepts the way Peter’s presence almost feels like another person’s. If Peter’s plan keeps everyone safe, then he’ll go along with it long enough to make sure of that. He’ll allow Peter’s hand on him, in him, Peter’s lips on his, and he’ll even be an active participant. It wouldn’t do for Peter to become too suspicious of him, after all.

So he arches up into Peter’s kiss, holds onto Peter’s arm as an uncertain anchor as Peter’s fingers breach him, and doesn’t let himself think too much about the logistics. They never need lube in this place, but while he can hear the sound of Peter’s hips slapping against his, the feeling of it isn’t so different from anything he’s tried on his own, between his own fingers or the toys he’s dared to order online. He doesn’t know if this is a point for Peter not really being here, or Peter just not having a very big dick. Honestly, he’s not sure which he prefers to be true. 

It’s all over soon enough, and Martin lets himself fall asleep, not caring how rude he may or may not be being. He knows he’ll wake up clean and with no evidence of this happening either way, so he might as well take advantage of that ambiguity. If one had to be in service to horrifying terrors, you might as well get all the benefits you could.

Sure enough, he wakes alone, the silence around him less oppressive than it had been, more like a heavy blanket than stifling humidity. He wraps it around himself as he stands, purposefully tilting his chin high as he changes clothes and walks to the next room and sits down at his desk. If Peter wants him to balance this, this duality only he supposedly has, then Martin will walk this tightrope. He’ll let Peter carry on with his agenda and keep an eye on everything else, the way any good Archivist would. 

He sighs as he opens his computer. At least Peter’s visit last night means he’ll be able to work today. There may be hope for the Artifact Storage crew, some hope for _someone_ in all of this. Someone will live to see the dawn, Martin will see to that.


End file.
